In a conventional online product search and purchase transaction, a consumer enters a product search term on a search engine. The search engine then returns results for the product, usually along with links to particular merchants that sell the product. The search engine may also return merchant advertisements related to the product.
By clicking on a link or merchant advertisement, the consumer is redirected to the merchant's website. There, the consumer must typically browse various products on the merchant's website to identify the specific product of interest. Once that product is identified, the consumer oftentimes must navigate to an additional merchant webpage that is specific to the product.
If the consumer desires to purchase the product, additional browsing is usually necessary. For instance, the consumer must indicate their desire to purchase the product, such as by accessing a link on the merchant's webpage specific for the product. Thereafter, the consumer may be redirected to a payment processing page, where they must enter their unique consumer credentials such as their billing address, shipping address, and payment account information. Hence, by the time a conventional product search and purchase transaction is complete, a consumer will have navigated through numerous merchant webpages. The consumer will have also participated in several consumer-driven decisions, such as which links or advertisements to select from the search engine product search results page, or which specific product to select from the merchant's website offering numerous products to select from. All of these activities—navigating numerous webpages and making decisions about products of interest—can be burdensome to a consumer. As such, the conventional product search and purchase transaction often hinders consumer convenience as well as consumer impulse buying.